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It’s fair to say that wellness has never gotten more attention in Indiana than it is now.

Trouble is, that attention doesn’t seem to be producing change.

Indiana has continued in the wrong direction on its rates of obesity, diabetes and physical inactivity—all key indicators of public health.

That’s both a medical and an economic problem. Employers already spend more per worker on health care in Indiana and the Midwest than in the rest of the country—about 8.6 percent of total compensation versus 7.8 percent nationally, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The lack of progress isn’t for lack of trying. The latest data on public health indicators are from 2012, the eighth year of Gov. Mitch Daniels’ high-profile push for better health among Hoosiers. Daniels' efforts, at best, made things less-worse than they would have been.

Daniels made fiscal discipline his highest priority, so Indiana’s public health spending remained low. In 2012, Indiana spent $13.51 per person on public health, ranked No. 49 among all 50 states, according to the Trust for America’s Health, a public health advocacy group.

Indiana employers also have spent more time and money on improving worker wellness—and doing more than peers nationally, according to Healthiest Employer LLC, an Indianapolis-based organization that produces a Healthy Employers Index for more than 4,000 employers around the country.

Indiana’s employers score far higher on that index than peers for having policies and leadership focus on wellness, according to Healthiest Employer. This year, Hoosier employers scored 69.7 percent, compared with 55.4 percent for employers overall.

Rod Reasen, CEO of Healthiest Employer, said the scores make him optimistic.

“Societies, governments, and employers of all sizes will always have an interest in keeping their populations healthy,” he wrote in an Aug. 19 supplement to Indianapolis Business Journal naming the five winners of a healthiest employers contest in Indiana. “And I believe we will all discover that the health of a population defines its strength.”

If he’s right, then Indiana is getting weaker each year, according to survey data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, 31.4 percent of Hoosier adults were obese, up from 30.8 percent the year before. Indiana ranked each year as the nation’s eighth most obese state.

Five years ago, the obesity rate in Indiana was 27.5 percent, ranking 11th nationally.

Hoosiers’ exercise habits got a bit better last year, with physically inactive adults dropping to 25.9 percent from 29.3 percent in 2011. But that’s still a tick worse than the 25.5 percent inactive in 2007.

In addition to these measures, rates of smoking and infant mortality also remain high—placing the state in the bottom 10 in each category.

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Health Care & Life Sciences WeeklyIndustry e-newsletter writer

Wall's career as a journalist was set in fifth grade, when he took on an afternoon paper route for The Indianapolis News. He admits to being a terrible paperboy because instead of delivering the newspaper right away, he would sit and read it for hours. He may have lost some customers, but he never lost the bug for news. A lifelong resident of central Indiana, Wall grew up in Sheridan—the one spot in Hamilton County untouched by suburbia. After graduating from DePauw University in Greencastle, he joined The Indianapolis Star as a business reporting intern and refused to leave until he had a full-time job. Wall stayed there five years before joining IBJ in February 2007. Wall and his wife now live in Indianapolis with their two sons. When not at the office, the Walls spend time with their extended family and worship at Christ Church Reformed Presbyterian in Brownsburg.

all’s career as a journalist was set in fifth grade, when he took on an afternoon paper route for The Indianapolis News. He admits to being a terrible paperboy because instead of delivering the newspaper right away, he would sit and read it for hours. He may have lost some customers, but he never lost the bug for news. A lifelong resident of central Indiana, Wall grew up in Sheridan—the one spot in Hamilton County untouched by suburbia. After graduating from DePauw University in Greencastle, he joined The Indianapolis Star as a business reporting intern and refused to leave until he had a full-time job. Wall stayed there five years before joining IBJ in February 2007. Wall and his wife now live in Indianapolis with their two sons. When not at the office, the Walls spend time with their extended family and worship at Christ Church Reformed Presbyterian in Brownsburg

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On Tuesday, April 24 IBJ & Indiana University will host Education-to-Employment (E2E) Convergence, a panel discussion focused on how Indiana can build a talent strategy around a more highly educated workforce. E2E will identify examples of successful partnerships to better integrate college graduates into our workforce from around the state. Register today.